Shorts redundancies take effect

More than 600 jobs are going at the firm

The first of over 600 redundancies at Belfast aerospace firm Shorts are due to take effect within days.

In October, parent company Bombardier announced it was cutting up to 645 jobs at the plant.

At that stage, management entered a 90-day consultation period with trade union officials and that is now ending.

There have been a number of voluntary redundancies and the company says it has had some success in finding other work for employees elsewhere.

A statement on the actual number of staff losing their jobs is expected within days, and the redundancies will be staggered over the next six months.

These latest cuts leaves the company with a workforce of about 4,700 people - the lowest level for many years.